Ron Klein and Debbie Wasserman Schultz at news conference in Miami Beach
Oh, make those phones ring!
Two Democratic members of Congress joined community health workers in urging the public to call Republicans in Congress to over-ride President Bush’s veto of the SCHIP bill.
“We’re going to work like dogs for the next week to make sure that when that vote comes up next Thursday that we get the 15 more votes we need in the House to over-ride the president’s veto,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) said.
Bush was giving a speech on trade in downtown Miami Friday afternoon as Wasserman Schultz and U.S. Rep. Ron Klein (FL-22) and health workers spoke at a news conference at a community health center in Miami Beach.
“This callous veto will have a real impact, a devastating cost, to our nation’s kids,” Wasserman Schultz said. “He is trading away their well-being and a hope for a better future. The president might as well be a million miles from here.”
Klein disputed the president’s claims that the bill would expand the state health insurance programs. “It simply maintains current law regarding eligibility. President Bush keeps talking about $80,000 (in family income level) but that’s not accurate…. We’re putting more money in so we can expand it to additional children," Klein said.
The pediatrician at the community health center, Dr. Lannie Vuong, said she was completely behind the drive to over-ride the veto. Tracy Britten, a single mother with an asthmatic 9-year-old daughter, spoke on behalf of the Human Services Coalition.
Martha Baker, a registered nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, said the public should lobby their representatives. Baker, who is president of Local 1991 of the Service Employees International Union, named the three Republican members of the U.S. House from Miami-Dade County, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25), and urged people to call them.
“Tell them how important it is to do the right thing. The richest country in the world needs to support kids to get good preventive health care, health care when they need it,” she said.
The U.S. Senate passed the bill with a veto-proof majority. Although many Republicans in the House of Representatives voted with the Democrats to pass the bill, the majority there fell short of the two-thirds required to over-ride the veto.
2 comments:
Thinking about this fiasco, I can't help but wonder if the Democrats really wanted to pass the legislation, or whether their intention was just to whip up public outrage at Bush, and hope that the public would remember it in November 2008.
If they really wanted to pass SCHIP - they would pass H Res.333 (to impeach Cheney) and to hold up/deny the confirmation of Mukasey as Attorney General.
Both of these strategies would get Bush's attention and probably stop him in his tracks.
These two strategies are self-standing and should be used for valid reasons of their own. It's a bonus that these strategies would probably bring Republicans around to pass SCHIP too.
Re 333, Cheney has lied us into war (the American dead (@3900), and has threatened war against Iran - both impeachable acts - and the list is too long for purposes of this email. (It would be worthy to join the South Florida Impeachment Coalition.)
Re the Attorney General-to-be, Mukasey helped write various torture memos to validate torture as US policy (against Amendment #8 - no use of cruel or unusual punishments; Geneva Conventions, etc.).
Re SCHIP, it does not seem becoming or necessary for the Democratic leadership to play victim.
Charlotte K. wants to be identified as the author of the comment above.
Post a Comment